


A Tragedy Everyone Saw Coming

by Fliggy



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, First Love, Short One Shot, leaving for college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 00:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16984977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fliggy/pseuds/Fliggy
Summary: When they heard back, it was worse than anyone had imagined.





	A Tragedy Everyone Saw Coming

We watched them play as children, in the backyards of our suburban homes, on the swings and slides in the neighborhood park, and over the lounge chairs at the pool on the corner of 31st and Market. In first grade, he gave her a flower, inspired by a book they were reading in class – their friends teased them for months. Embarrassed, they stopped talking, but secretly, at the library, or in the halls, she would catch his eye.

Life caught up to them. His interest in ancient history became an obsession, and while his teachers taught Lois Lowry and Harper Lee, he pored over Herodotus, Virgil, and the exploits of the Greek warriors. His favorites were the myths of Ajax and Achilles: their courage and valor, the wars they fought and the people they killed, and always, always the tragic downfall. For the capricious gods, like children chucking rocks into a pond, each time sent the heroes swirling away from their triumph – caught in the eddies of celestial mischief.

Meanwhile, as he buried his head in history books, she became the only girl on their high school math team. She wasn’t the best (that would be Scott, whom she dated for six weeks in between sophomore and junior year), but she was close, and between her excellence, her warmth, and a general indifference to her own brand of nerdiness, she became popular at the school in a way few others were. Many looked up to her, and perhaps what they admired most of all was the way she approached each problem: with unflinching devotion to the task ahead.

In those early spring months of senior year, while students waited and universities pondered, three different boys asked her to the prom, but each time she only smiled and shook her head. When he did finally come around, he was dressed casually – with a bouquet of roses, store-bought, just a few minutes prior, the tag still hanging from the paper. Those next few weeks were the happiest, for them, for us, for life, as color returned to the trees. We buzzed happily at our book club and sidewalk meetings, as we watched the completion of a story eighteen years in the making.

But we knew, too. Yes, we knew. After all, wasn’t it only Odysseus, the sneakiest (and certainly coolest) of his compatriots, that escaped the terrible fate of the Greek heroes? And even he had to suffer – tossed about the ocean for twenty years by the whims of the pantheon, his fate reversed so many times it almost brought about a feeling of narrative whiplash.

When they heard back, it was worse than anyone had imagined. Him: Stanford. Her: MIT. Three thousand miles. After that, the thunder of rainclouds seemed like laughter. Did they discuss what was coming to pass? In those last moments they had together, we never saw a look nor heard a word of acknowledgement. We never saw them comment on nor make light of the small cruelties of fate. But, perhaps, when the time came for him to lash himself to that raft and set himself adrift on open ocean, perhaps he turned to her and said. “Wait for me.”


End file.
